Of cinnamon, chocolate and bitterness
by AmyDiNozzo
Summary: Drabbles based on Emma's childhood and the woman she now is, a key word for every text. Already posted : Christmas and Photograph.
1. Holy night

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." - Bobby, age 7

She's three years old, and there are stars in her eyes, and her smile is bigger than the universe, and her laughter is the purest melody in this world.

And mama is holding her against her chest as she discovers the presents under the tree, _look what Santa got you Emma,_ and the next second she's on the ground and she's making a mess of confetti.

And really, if she weren't this young she would have seen the tears in Miss Swan's eyes, she would have heard the goodbye in the sound of paper being torn, she would have catched the _"I hope she'll get to keep them in the system"_ from her dad.

"The baby will have toys too ?" eventually asks the little girl as she neglects her toys, touching her mother's belly, a belly which is getting rounder and bigger.

And she doesn't understand why her mom's face suddenly breaks, and she's scared she's made a mistake so she puts her tiny hands on her mother's cheek and she tells her she loves her, and she hopes her mama feels better.

She always feels better after an _"i love you"_ from her.

.

She's thirteen years old, and the stars in her eyes are barely shining, and she doesn't dare to think it but she knows they are dying, they are leaving her.

Everyone eventually leaves.

She squeezes herself in a tiny corner in the dark street, and she's so cold, it's her first run away. She couldn't bare to spend Christmas with her abuser.

And still, she can't hold back the tears that are burning her eyes and this lump in her throat that keeps her from breathing as she should.

She knows she had a family until she was three, she knows she has someone to hate for _this_ , but she has forgotten the most important part.

Grown up Emma doesn't remember how Christmas is supposed to feel like.

A smile splits her young face. She will probably never know.

.

She's seventeen years old, and she's surprised to say the stars are not dead yet.

Dare she say, the stars are rebirthing.

And it's all because of _him_.

"So what do you think Emma ?" asks Neal, and he has the dreamiest smile she has ever seen, and he loves _her_.

They are in the back of that damn yellow car, under tons and tons of covers, rests of fast food in the front, and it smells terrible, but it also starts to smell like home.

In the background, she hears the infamous _oh holy night_ , and she feels so peaceful and wanted.

"I think I love you." She whispers, shining eyes. "And I also think that's enough."

.

She learns later that it wasn't enough. That _she_ wasn't enough.

That you can walk around all you like with your stupid ideas about _love_ and _fairytales_ and _happy endings_ and without realizing it you can also wake up in jail and pregnant.

She stops celebrating Christmas the year her baby is born.

She stops celebrating Christmas the year she abandons her baby and herself.

.

She's twenty eight, and the stars are long gone in her eyes, but Mary Margaret insists, she wants her to be there at the town's party and she can't say no to her roommate.

It's strange to have someone who hugs you at midnight, to have someone who cradles your head and whispers _"Merry Christmas Emma"_ and she's scared to get used to it because _people leave_.

.

She's thirty, and the stars are in her eyes, but it's only a mirage, because she's living a lie and she has forgotten that everyone left her.

But then there's a knock on her door, and she swears the tender blue she meets is the realest thing in her life.

(Eventually Walsh leaves her. And she pushes _him_ away, to keep him from leaving her too.)

.

She's thirty two, and there are no longer stars in her eyes, but constellations, and it doesn't feel like home, it _is_ home.

Everyone is reunited at her house, at _their_ house, they are celebrating Christmas, and Killian even insisted to put all those cheesy decoration, and she had to whine about it but honestly she doesn't mind.

Her parents are in the kitchen, preparing the yule log, the only part of the diner they haven't eaten yet, Regina and Robin are on the couch with the last born child and Rolland is playing with Henry, and it's _adorable_.

Belle is being her amazing self with baby Neal, carefully playing with the little child as she is herself pregnant of six month now, and Killian well...Killian is his dashing self, trying to put together one of Rolland's toy, awfully concentrated and _handsome_.

 _And what about you Emma ?_ asks teenage Emma who has just run away from her fifth home. _Are you happy in the end ?_

She must have been staring because Killian looks up and pours his pretty eyes in hers, and his lips mime an _"i love you"_ and her heart skips a beat.

A smile slowly illuminates her face.

 _I am._


	2. Bottled happiness and nostalgia

Emma is six years old when she discovers the concept of photographs, and she's immediately attracted to it.

"People photograph thing they don't ever want to see die..." explains her foster father as her goodnight tale.

He has warm brown eyes, and the tenderest smile she has ever been greeted by. He speaks in a low voice, a very soft voice that makes her feel safe as she lays between the sheets.

"...They photograph things they don't see themselves live without. Or you know Emma, things they find beautiful, like you know when we were at that lake the other day and you insisted on swimming in that dirty water…"

She giggles at the thought, so calm and happy, and _hopeful_ , because he likes her, he really does, and he smells like chocolate pie and something manly but very reassuring.

She knows it now, she's going to stay with them and be _loved_.

Because that other day, at the lake, he photographed _her_.

.

She learns later, when she's back in the system, _we are getting too old Emma, we won't be able to take care of your properly_ , that even though people photograph things they don't ever want to see die, they can kill them without a second thought.

She knows she's unfair, thinking like that, when she has seen the exhaustion in those brown eyes.

But that fact is they _liked_ her and they didn't _fight_ for her.

(And if it's that easy to give up on someone you love, then what's the point of loving at all.)

.

They've been dating for a month when Emma finds a picture of herself on Neal's phone.

He's busy getting them lunch and she isn't the busybody type but he has forgotten his phone on his seat and she just wanted to see his phone background, and _oh_ she's freaking out.

She stares mortified at the stolen picture of her, the stolen moment, the bottled happiness, heart beating loudly in her chest.

On the photograph, she's smiling, an arm outside of the car, wearing one of Neal's shirt. The sun is making her hair look golden, and the worst part is she remembers _exactly_ this moment.

They were stuck in traffic, and she was irritated, and he had tried to cheer her up. He _hated_ it when she was down, and then he had made fun of her grumpy temper, and she had loosen it.

As she tenses her fingers around the phone, she's struck by the inevitable.

She's _completely_ and _utterly_ in love with this stupid thief idiot and it's terrifying her because she knows very well people in general, _they leave_ , and... he seems to love her too.

 _...Or you know Emma, things they find beautiful…_

 _._

Photographing their baby, it's one of the first thing that parents do when they get to hold their first born child.

When the tiny little human is safely wrapped in his mother's arms, it's the instinct of the other parent to whisper a mortified and excited _"Wait !"_ before getting out a camera and holding it like the Graal.

In an instant, the moment is immortalized and the happiness stands still, unwavering.

They want to remember _everything_.

Especially with their first kid, because it's all new and precious and how could they forget the size of those minuscule pink feet.

They photograph their enfant almost everyday, so that one day when their kid isn't one anymore, he'll get to look at those picture and see how far he's come.

Mostly, see that his parents were always there, that they looked after him, that there's never been a moment where they hadn't tried to catch him before the fall.

And then, one day, when the parents aren't there anymore to remember him, so that he can not forget that he mattered.

That for a short period of time, to their eyes, he was the most precious being.

.

Emma doesn't want _any_ photograph of her baby.

It would have probably been different if someone had been there to take the picture, if someone had been holding her hand, telling her that it would be okay, that they were going to do this together.

She swallows hard, tears burning her eyes, and this ache in her throat, in her chest, _everywhere_.

 _People photograph things they don't want to forget._

 _._

On the way home from New York to Storybrooke, she wonders who has told Hook about photographs. She's been driving for a good hour when she lays an eye on his asleep body in the passenger seat.

She rediscovers the brown dishevelled hair, the timidly tan skin, the elegant nose, the charming and full pinkish lips and…

Frowning, she's suddenly struck by how much younger he looks unconscious.

It's probably because his eyelids are closed, and therefore one can't be graced by the turmoil of two bewitching oceans.

Her throat is tight as she concentrates herself again on the road, mumbling a very delicate _what the hell Emma he's not_ _ **that**_ _handsome_. She then tries very hard to remind herself that she is _very_ angry at him because he has woken her up from her dream and really that's not fair.

She swallows her pride, quickly glancing once again at him between her eyelashes.

Deep down, she's very well aware of the reason she's so inexplicably mad at the pirate.

She wishes she had taught him about photographs, and maybe she would have hastily murmured that she wanted one of him _._

Well, for that last part, one could always dream.

.

"May I have the honor ?" he asks her in the sheriff station, and his voice is the most soothing one she has ever heard.

The box is in her hands, and she knows her hold is far too strong on the object. Truth to be told, when he's looking at her like _that_ , she feels like her heart is about to explode between her ribs.

She begs for air, her inner voice screaming that she has never shared this with _anyone_ else, that she should protect herself from him and his loving everything.

Still, a very tiny part of her whispers that she can trust him, that he's going to stay, and even dares to assert that he's in love with her.

(And maybe, just maybe, that she _might_ be in love with him.)

She gives him the box.

The next second, he's staring at a picture of her and Neal, and it triggers her anxiety so much that her breath is stolen from her.

Overwhelmed, she waits for his reaction.

But then he's gazing at her with _compassion_ and _understanding_ , and in that instant she's certain.

This is it, it's _him_.

(That day she promises herself to take a photograph of them at their next date.)


End file.
